


The Call

by HostisHumaniGeneris



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Body Horror, F/M, Infected Characters, Trick or Treat 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-12-28 20:37:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21142838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HostisHumaniGeneris/pseuds/HostisHumaniGeneris
Summary: It used to be a joke, sort of.  They had each other listed as the other’s emergency contact, the person who’d get the phone call if something happened.  The joke of that was, since they were partners, they’dknowbefore that phone call was ever made—if something happened to one of them, the other would definitely be aware.It was never a particular funny joke.But it was their joke.





	The Call

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Silex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/gifts).

It was noon when she got the call.

It used to be a joke, sort of. They had each other listed as the other’s emergency contact, the person who’d get the phone call if something happened. The joke of that was, since they were partners, they’d _know _before that phone call was ever made—if something happened to one of them, the other would definitely be aware.

It was never a particular funny joke.

But it was their joke.

And then Spencer, Wesker, Tricell, all of that happened. Chris was there to see her drop out a window, but hadn’t been aware of the rest of it. A _lot _of things happened that she hadn’t told him about. Maybe he knew, maybe he didn’t. But she came back, and everything was right. Except, they weren’t partners anymore. In the BSAA. They kept her on as an instructor, but she was never going to be cleared for field work again.

So she would be on the sidelines. She’d pull a few strings to pick up some more information that hadn’t been cleared to release to the press, but as he went headlong into situations, she’d worry and hope she never got the call.

The first mission he went on without her was… bad. It almost reminded her of the confusion after Raccoon, where she was looking for him after getting out of the city, and Claire had come to the city to look for him, and Chris had gone to Europe but left to find Claire.

It got easier.

At least, she told herself that. 

Then Edonia happened. There was nothing worse than those six months after Edonia, until she found out they had found him. Then nothing was worse than the fact that they sent him out to China immediately, rather than coming home. She raged at that, considered quitting the BSAA—he couldn’t be in any shape to take point on such a massive operation. When the missiles hit and the entire city filled with the dead, she felt hollowed out.

But she didn’t get the call.

Was it selfish? The relief she felt? Even though Chris was a mess, sole survivor of his unit. He was torn up over all of it. He was still Chris. He went on an all-to-brief leave, which ended before he could just be himself again, open up again. She realized that, not running operations with him any more, there was something missing. A gulf that opened up between them. She told herself it didn’t matter. She hadn’t gotten the call.

If she was selfish, she was punished for it because Chris would not stop. It was something everyone said, under their breath. Chris was in no condition to keep running operations. He always got the job done, but at what cost? How much longer could he keep it up?

So when she got the phone call that something had gone _wrong_, it was not like it was supposed to be. It didn’t feel quite like a knife to her gut, twisting. It was just a numb, disconnected ache, like she’d been feeling ever since Wesker. She got dressed, and pulled a few more strings—her own past service and the fact this was all about Captain Redfield opened a lot of doors—and hopped aboard the first flight she could get.

She wasn’t paying attention as she marched down the hallway, not really hearing to what was said. What he was infected by. Where he was when he got infected. Things that technically she was not cleared to know, but was being told anyways. And she wasn’t listening.

She just walked down the hallway, hands in her jacket pockets as she was led. They had set him up in one of negative pressure labs rooms in this particular facility. As she was led to an observation window, one of the scientists explained that this contagion didn’t like bright lights, so they had to keep things dim to prevent Chris from getting agitated.

The numbness was starting to go away when she looked at him, and that knife-edge in her guts was hitting her now. He blinked, looking at the thing in the corner. It was vaguely person shaped. It stuck by one corner of the room; in the deepest shadows it could get. It looked _wet_, and the glass was streaked with something dark colored. 

“They were running low on the antifungals.” She jumped a little when the doctor next to her said the words. “Came down to him or a civilian getting the dose. He’d gave his words to another survivor that’d he’d look out for the civ.”

She nodded. She honestly didn’t want to know anything more about the civilian, or the circumstances really. There was a fire somewhere overseas… or in the U.S., she wasn’t sure because she hadn’t been paying attention. An anonymous civilian was easier to resent than one she learned about. “Is he… lucid?”

The pause had lasted long, her searching for the correct words. That toothy, tar-like monster was _not _fine, or okay. Asking if he was sane ignored the fact that Chris had to be crazy to keep going on missions after Lanshaing. After Edonia. After Kijuju. Christ, after Raccoon they had to be mad to keep this up. 

“Yeah. He’s just not… well.”

“Any chance of using that medicine, making some more?”

The head shake she got made her frown deeper. “The mutamycete is not… curing him would likely be fatal. There’s a lot of that mold in him—making him up right now.”

“Can I go in?”

-

It violated procedure, but she was let in without a biohazard suit—just a set of scrubs that would get burned when she was done. She’d get a mega dose of that treatment they had—just in case her own not-quite-human any more antibodies couldn’t fight it off, and end up quarantined herself.

She’d spent a lot of time in quarantine. Some more right now meant nothing.

Honestly, given Chris's state, she imagined she'd be spending a lot of time in and out of quarantine. It wasn't like either of them had anything better to do anymore.

“Chris?” She was sure he was facing her, because well—there were more eyes than strictly necessary, circling a mouth that took up most of the real estate of what had used to be his face. The Molded were supposed to be feral, but there were infectees that looked human… until they mutated. There wasn’t much the B.S.A.A. knew about this—the reformed Umbrella maybe knew more than they let on—they had anti-fungal ammunition and an effective antifungal agent ready. 

“Jill…” He was talking. There was a weird cadence to his voice, but it was his voice. That was good. Focus on the conversation, not the unimportant things, like the claws. Or trying to figure out how he managed to push through her name through all those teeth and no lips. “Sorry.”

“No, don’t apologize. I heard you did the right thing.” She really resented whoever the fuck he gave the medicine to right now. Reminding herself that that sort of thing was a very Chris thing to do, and he made that choice didn’t really help. Her voice was flat when she said "You saved that civilian."

“…lost some men.” There was something messed up with that statement. It was _normal_. He _always _beat himself up over deaths on a mission, she had listened to this conversation more times than she'd like to remember. They—he was in a super high risk field, losses would happen. That was what she told him, despite the fact that, she knew what ate at him--no matter what, he got through it more or less fine, even if everyone else did not. It was perfectly Chris for him to be focusing on that, the losses more than saving others. The losses were terrible. But it was still shocking that was what he was focusing on.

He apparently might be taking this entire situation better than her, and that was _not _enhancing her mood.

When all of a sudden he wheeled around and slammed his head into the wall with a wet slap, she flinched. He pulled away, leaving a tarry, black stain as whatever rubbery material made him up slowly returned from the dent the impact had caused. She noticed plenty of black stains on that wall. They warned her self mutiliation was something mold infectees would do. "I fucked up."

She took in a deep breath. The topic at hand… he was infected with some sort of horribly mutagenic mold—mood swings were to be expected, but he’d otherwise retain full intelligence, given he wasn’t a slavering monster. Right now, he was doing very Chris things. Things could be worse. They could be _better_, yes they could, but they could also be worse. "You did what you could, Chris. You always do."

"It wasn't enough." They looked at one another for a long while. She supposed she was supposed to say something, some words of encouragement, but she had no clue what to say. The usual routine was for her to emphasize what he saved over what he lost, but right now... Thankfully Chris took the lead. "Don't suppose I'm ever leaving a quarantine room."

"I don't... probably not." She was doing a terrific job being comforting. "Sorry."

"Not your fault." He said. 

"Are you... okay?" He'd been acting very normal, something that was shocking.

He paced a little. "I've thought about this before... I'm mostly all there... figure they might learn something."

They both had that awkward conversation, years ago, what if one of them was infected? The answer was 'don't let me be a monster' for them both. But... Chris was Chris. She'd been told he'd vacillated between sullen and angry and manic and everything in between, but after the initial shock, hadn't been asking to be burned. Only that he was in BSAA, not Umbrella custody. If he could accept this... things could be better. But there were plenty of ways for it to be a lot worse.

There was another awkward pause. "Finally got the call, eh? Glad I put you down as my emergency contact."

It wasn't a funny joke, but as something in front of her shrugged, then rippled and made a sound not quite Chris laugh, she couldn't help but join in.

**Author's Note:**

> Hm. This was an offbeat idea that just popped into my head. Hopefully I did alright with it.


End file.
